Synthesis and characterization of mesoporous carbon through inexpensive mesoporous silica as template

Mesoporous silica materials have been synthesized through sol–gel reaction using inexpensive sodium silicate as source of silica and low cost hydroxy carboxylic acid compounds as templates/pore forming agents. The material measured surface area of 1014 m2/g, pore diameter of 65 Å and pore volume of 1.4 cc/g when parameters like time and temperature of synthesis along with mole ratio of TA/SiO2 were optimized. Here TA stands for tartaric acid. Carbonization of sucrose inside the pores of above silica material at 900 °C followed by removal of silica framework using aqueous ethanoic solution of NaOH gave rise to mesoporous carbon material. The resulting materials were characterized by N2-sorption, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermal analysis and cyclic voltammetry. Three dimensional interconnecting wormhole channel arrangement of mesoporous silica template leads to mesoporous carbon replica with surface area of 1200 m2/g. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic study (XPS) of the mesoporous carbon material shows the concentration of carbon atom in the range of 97–98% with 1–2% oxygen and negligible amount of silica. The electrochemical double layer capacitance behavior of carbon material with the specific capacitance value of 88.0 F/g at the scan rate of 1 mV/s appears to be promising.